An account of the writing — and reading, and other stuff — in my life by Andrew Cartmel.

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Mr Hood, We're Needed

One of the most gratifying things about writing a book is getting
feedback.

Okay, wait a minute, to be completely honest the most gratifying thing about
writing a book is getting lots of money and sitting in your villa in Tuscany
watching the rich colours of the sunset with a glass of vintage wine in your
hand and the super model of your choice at your side.

But while you’re waiting for all that, one of the other gratifying
things is getting feedback about your books.

Especially when it's perceptive.

Especially when it surprises you.

When I wrote my second Rupert Hood spy thriller, Event Driven,
everyone agreed that it was a big improvement on the first. That was good to
hear — certainly a lot better than the opposite.

But now that there are two books in the series, people are
beginning to see patterns emerge.

To celebrate delivery of the manuscript I had a drink with my
publisher Matt Lynn at the Frontline Club. He grinned at me and said, “Do you
know what these stories remind me of? The Avengers. Not the American movie. The
vintage Brit TV series.”

I hadn’t thought of this, but he was right. And I was delighted.

Because I loved The Avengers. Particularly the brilliant Diana
Rigg/Emma Peel era.

Then, just after the book was published my friend the writer Keith
Temple read it (and reviewed it on Amazon) and made the same connection with
The Avengers.

You certainly are.
We need fast-moving thrillers peopled with engaging characters, drawn from the
world of espionage, with an edge of fantasy and humour.

You’re needed now more than ever.

(PS: Since the geniuses at Google have redesigned Blogger it is
now seems to be physically impossible to attach links to images, so thank you to the
following sites who provided the images here: the wonderfully named Starlet Showcase, and Die Bilderwumme who created the lovely colour pic of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg.)

4 comments:

Interesting, I'll look for your books in our local Waterstones. Meanwhile, here's how to include links from images. You have to go to the html tab an replace the link after <a href= e.g.this is the link to the larger image: